william.scherk

Thanks so much for this. From now on I will think not of Northumbrian or Highland or CapeBreton bagpipes, but of Indo-European pipes, period. They wailed the fall of Troy, they waded wailing onto Normandy, they accompany this gallant lady into battle. Of the dumb deliberate cruelties of the Taliban, to starve people of music was the dumbest, because of course it is impossible to take music from a person without killing the person outright. Still, they did keep a large number of Afghans from listening to their music, or singing or playing it except under awful secrecy. One of my youngest students, Waheeda, heard hardly any music her whole life, until she was 21 and orphaned and a refugee. The first song she ever sang aloud, in company with others, happened to be "O Canada", because we always sing it at the end of every class. It tends to wake them up. Okay, so since you are so dependable on translating the song's lyrics via your students (it's in Dari), I had the first verse and chorus transliterated. At least now you can sing along, Carol. And after it is burned into your brain, you can sing it to your students. You may not get to be a big star in TO, but you will be a big star to me. Afghan Is Tan What Am Afghan Is Tan What Am Em Two-ee Show Cow To Show Neigh (repeat) Dearie To Why What Tan An Ass Tea Moy Lou Toe Nee Why Burr Man High Go Low? Kay Too Less On Tea Go Low (repeat)

They shoot only runts, and they do that with the battery-operated bolt-gun through a fake bottle. Grim but final. A greater question of the bovine equine distinction that so rolls the philosophy of meat eating, one pesky reader of Dr Mrs Dr's Zany Advice site keeps asking her if she eats horse meat. And I think, what the hell? Lady just tirelessly campaigns for a lifting of onerous horse-slaughter regulations that cause undue suffering to transported old nags that have to go outside the USA to be killed and rendered. But because the good lady with the excellent short and sassy mane might eat babies if they were properly labeled as anencephalic and were organic, this means nothing in principle. Diana has decreed nothing about eating horse. Nothing. She wants horses not to be sent to their Final Solution, in, you guessed it, Canada. Land of abortion, horsemeat, gay naked marriage potsmoking brothels and all. Hell for humankind, hell for horses. She admits that. She wants horses humanely slaughtered in Colorado. In her backyard. For a price. An objective price. Does a petro sheik drink his oil? Does an architect eat his buldings? Does a pirate eat his stolen cargo? Would Diana eat her relatives? This is an important distinction to make lest we think Diana was being hypocritical. In ordinary circumstances she might support voluntary deportation to Canada for slaughter, for the pre-born, the socialist, and for the old nags. She is consistent here, and I respect that. If she would eat supermarket organic anencephale steak tartare or stillborn faux-brain (since they have none, rendering them food) croquettes with bacon, One Thing. Another Damn Thing -- eating the thing that looks at her through the window while she 'works' on her blogs and self-admiring promotional shills elsewhere. PayPal Philosopher.. Your Money Pays For My Horses' Insurance and My Hair. Since 2012 and still rockin the free world! I have a RADIO SHOW! It"s on almost all the time (in my house) and I offer free fun things like extra radio shows all the time. Like me on iTunes. Leave a comment. Press a button. Call me. Send me money. Talk to me. Seriously ... I give advice and get all purse-lipped on Certain Subjects. My open threads are as open as Eva Peron's crypt. And as safe after dark. Though not as well visited. PayPal Philosopher, raised by Objectivish nutters and carrying on the tradition to its logical endgame, madness and humiliation. Did I mention PayPal? Every little nickel helps, folks. That"s how all the bigtime evangelists started, honest. They called it nickel and diming. I don't care what they call it. It still pays my Dowry rent and the hay for my fucking horses! Mwa ha ha ha ha.

The team from Ukraine: http://www.youtube.com/watch?ah_QZtz4bMc#t=27s

I am such a racist. I assumed the black guy was the Yankee and the white guy the stern bureacratic monster. Black guy is from a small town with a French name in Alberta, of course. His kids for gawds sakes, his multicultural kids went through state-assisted French Immersion I bet you two to one. Carol, is it time for Legislative Rioting, or what? First contestant. From Taiwan, with love and bipartisan enthusiasm:

I will DM you with some links and comments you may have missed. I know you do not spend much time here. Turkey and its complex cultures cannot be reduced to Islam or this or that. Even 'Turkishness' is in dispute, though insulting it can get you jail. Turkey is still investigating its lengthy 'Plot of the Generals' which eventuated many arrests, including many journalists, some one dozen of which remain in detention today awaiting trial, convicted, or subject to inquiry. Erdogan this week again raised the idea of a change to Turkey"s constitution that would usher in a French or US style presidency and cabinet. I like Turks and hope they get through a proper readjustment of the history of the lands they now inhabit. I wish more cultural room for Turkey's minorities, a more Yugo-slav notion, and barring that, full integration into the European Union. Only when Turkey becomes or makes itself become a fully Western style democracy (Plot of the Generals? Kurdish rights under Brussels?) will they become European, however. In Europe those nations who set Turks apart (Germany) from their own societies while allowing them the privilege of work and residency ... they wish to integrate, but I think those two things are on the same course. Slow. Inevitable to come to religion. As a titularly secular state that has managed to retain if not maintain its quilt of tradition and communities (barring the occasional million or so Armenians, Circassians, Syriacs or other infidel driven from their homes), it deserves our solid support in terms of pure Western self-interest, as a beachhead of enlightenment. It gets our support in NATO, which is the key to our interest in Turkey. This is all uninteresting floaty bits on the pot of simmering racialist hysteria that Richard likes, so ... see you back here perhaps sometime for your own evaluation or analysis or run-on sentence.

To complete the hijacking of the Shriner Terrorist Chimp Parade thread, here is a little-known picture of the chief Shriner Priestess, Pepsico-Rothschild-FDA honcho Joan Crawford, with John Travis's mother, Bette. Date unknown. Note the heavily-regulated stupefying beverage in Miss Crawford's left paw, and the Missing Monster in the mirror behind her with self-same fatal brew. Obama? Hitler? Mr Pepsico?

Ouch. Ouch. Ouch. This calls for a complete cleanse. Ick. Detox. Cult alert. Defector. Purge. Cleanse. Detox. Purge. Detox. Ahhh, the refreshment and the promise of Objectivish maniacs.

The man whom I consult in cases of extreme wit, the only doctor whom I tend to obey, says, "Not that I have a formed opinion on whether gay marriage ought to be a states rights issue, it’s just a matter of perceiving political maneuvers in progress." Very close to my sentiments, once you remove my Obama-goggles. Because these issues in Canada were settled the slow way, through Trudeau-era policies set in the Charter, decided in courts. So, in Canada, it does not matter. We tend to not revisit a right once notched. Alberta was fiercely, fiercely opposed to homosexual marriage until the court said whoa. Alberta public opinion lurched heavily to do-not-give-a-shit afterwards. Public policy decisions rendered from a long process of suits and countersuits and lengthy challenges and appeals, on numerous social fronts began long ago, and are now decided. A long way of saying that the only game in town for Canadians on social issues is America. All our playoffs are over except polygamy. WIth the Bawdy House provisions of the criminal code struck down,** we have few remaining areas to continue the mad socialist equality rampage. We are kind of stalled, with Argentina, at full public health services for the transgendered. Our PM said recently that his government would not revisit gay marriage, and failed to note his personal objections (of fierce longstanding stripe). Snoo ooze. There is no action up here. So, I thought Ed perfectly captured the Train She's a Coming moment for the USA in what will not likely be a circus, but a stately measured curbwallow of a campaign, shrill, emotive and thrilling to the bone, unlike our melodramatic socialism. As a sideshow or a Bearded Lady attraction, the USA gay thing is a rare salt to our dull legal-political salad up north. A very modern interesting moment in America when it is okay to talk about gay 'rights' (in the Charter sense) in the foremost campaign, and for Objectivish alike to advise the advanced in years that new generations give not a shit. As as sideshow I hope gaywise the campaign is a snooze and conservatives (social) stick to decaf ...but the Santorum lives and may strike again. Look at how things are settled in a Royal nation like ours.; The Crown said, let the people marry in Alberta, and so they did. The Crown decided there could be no more legislation on abortion in Canada, and there wasn't. Dull. That is why we collect long guns. Not afraid of change, just afraid of sudden movement. So we snoozed our way to purely social liberties still unworkable under 'state' legal regimes. It will take longer for change in America, because, as I intuit from the Doctor's remarks, a state can restrict and legislate or free up and deregulate where and what the hell it wants in some instances, and should.** So in warm, sunny and deeply socialist New England states (cursed, no doubt, with stains of Canada and Kerouac), no one now gives a shit about gay marriage or ladies' bits and abortion insurance. But in Virginia, the mad Xtian douchebag government does, and legislates widely, wildly. We have no equivalent to Rachel Maddows and the Transvaginal Express, because we are sickeningly boring and have destroyed our society and our peoples' wills. At least with regard to social liberties. Sad but true, we can but watch as y'all catch up. ____ ** another sad legal fact of the Crown and our hideously confederated state, the feds have the Code. So no 'state' may override either the Charter or the Feds or the Courts -- which all carry the weight of this heavy heavy thing called The Crown. So, 'states rights' is a Jeopardy question only in this benighted hellhole. The same Crown that stomped on the Métis now gives them status and the same Crown that shed blood on the Plains of Abraham denotes Quebec as a nation. Snoo ooze. Only America in its throes is exciting, despite the evil of Canada. A dull, plodding evil can get away with so much more, and so has been victorious here and we are ruined. The USA has so many more playoffs to come..

There are two kinds of people in the world. Those who think there are two kinds of people in the world, and those with other opinions. For the purpose of learning, we omit such pesky measurements and tip all the distinctions into one big pot. There are three kinds of Chimpanzees in the world, Pan troglodytes, Pan paniscus ... and I cannot be bothered to look it up. Most Chimps are (without knowing it) Scientologists. I make this claim strongly. I make the claim that John Travis Simpson here is a rogue scientologist chimp. Having taught himself to speak and read and drive a truck for the Shriners, he went off the rails of being a Chimp qua Chimp, and became a sport of nature. Three parts crank, one part oboe, one part screech owl, and only one part hominid (those grasping fingers on his feet). This is true because I said it. Though not as attractive as the other similar primate, Jo-Jo the Dog-faced Boy, John Travis can probably achieve similar renown and mentions in The Globe (just beside Monica Lewinsky/Obama Zombie Love Child: Does Michelle Know?, but below Obama is not a Marxist: He is ALIEN.). How do I know this? Well, everything is poison, everyone is a quack, Scientologists make good points, and ... we are all doomed. Thus ... If anyone is in doubt of the truth of what I say, I can quickly construct a false dilemma: If you do not accept what I (or John Travis) say/s. then you support the FDA and want to destroy human freedom. Thus, John Travis is a renegade chimpanzee scientologist with scrofula, a small room in Pensacola's 'carny alley' -- and a small pension from the Shriners. The Shriners wear red Fezzes. Islamic sheiks wear Red Fezzes. King Farouk wore a fez. Thus, thus. Thus! Thus JTS is a false-flag Zombie Alien Marxist Sex God Robot, like all other former or pre-scientologist terrorists. That is how I reason, loose, wide, sweeping and determined. Kind of like a Zamboni, reducing all before me to a clean sheet of slippery goodness. Suitable for professional sports and recreational zombie leagues alike. NB - the truck that John Travis drove until 'the accident' was not a full-sized truck. If you have ever been to a Shriner Islamic Terrorist Parade, you will know what I mean. Well, bonobos won't, but JTS is no Abu bin Bonobo. He is Abu bin Trog ... Thus, thus.

Paul, I hope you stick around and put your oar back in the water. In your last post, in 2008, there were tantalizing hints of what was next to come from you.

LM, I have the Commander on ignore, so I see only your fitfull attempts to correct his moral myopia. If I gave a donation to your favourite charity, will you enjoin discussion with a non-maniac, a non-SOLOite Islam-hater? Not that I will slash my wrists or push a wall over onto homosexual criminals or anything if you do not respond, but I wonder: why are you talking to Richard Wiig.

Off-topic for the talking chimps and LaRouchites here swimming contra the flow of reality, but on topic for Narcissism; the beautiful and erudite Dr Mrs Doctor Hsieh comments ... and offers a picture of her stunning new Objectivish hairdo. From 'Obligatory Narcissism.' Apparently, from a later, less exciting entry at her Philosophy Inaction site, on the other side of the window is a Horse Face looking back at her, stalking her, as horses do from time to time:

Ed seems to be busy with the pumps and outflow valves over at Lindsay's sewage farm, with a few good comments addressed to those with brains who linger at SOLO. He also gets to read and react to statements like this: It's not as if gays are being marched off to concentration camps ... It just shows you how good they've got it. http://www.solopassi...#comment-109892 -- and: n the UK, homosexuals are one the most dominant lobby groups next to pensioners, feminists and the racism sensitive. Oh, Ed, we hardly knew you. Come back, come back to Marlboro country.

We have our own dang firearms, thank you very much (and with the exception of automatic/handguns) and we keep them safe and ready. Phil says -- Adam, Carol -- that you could compare firearms 'ownership' rates between Canada and the US. Surprises? Phil will not say. Anyhow, when you cross the border, Yankees, do declare your guns. Don't try to hide them, or you will lose your guns and we will seize your car and sell it to pay for more guns for us. If this degenerates into My Gun Is Bigger Than Your Tiny Cache, I will invoke Emergency Rules and bring up Laura Secord. No one wants to hear the Laura Secord tale ever again, on either side of the border, so you two gun-slinging militarist windbags, the both of you, should make peace and get back to Party Planning. I hear Janet is going to try to barge in. Check under every mask, I say.

On this day of days (a gay day for America, a grey day for Canada), when we celebrate Barbara's birth, I like to think of that fabulous picture in Jim Valliant's book, with Barbara's hair almost as high as Amy Weinhouse's nest, and with her eyeliner amost as large, a serene look on her face in profile. If I weren't afraid of Jim Valliant and the ARI Copright Cops, I would scan and publish. This is what I thought might be motivating Barbara the day of that photograph (judging from the eyeliner and hair-nest, between '67 and '68): Sunshine, Lollipops and Rainbows (and Ayn Rand) and Everything ... [media=]

An (invading or triumphant rival who has killed a King of Lions) male lion will often kill [young offspring of his vanquished rival/s -- and sometimes all the suckling young]. It is observed that female lions cannot come into estrus until a new hormonal regime begins after they stop lactating. Makes evolutionary sense for the new King. Makes humans blush, all that death-to-spawn-of-rivals and fuck-their-widows -- except in the bible. I use the same tools as you, Tony, and check my goggles and try to adjust for bias. I look at fruits of rational inquiry from the behavioural sciences, and I string them together as a lure, Tony. The big eye hypothesis, the Oxytocin experiments, the surge of hormones not under conscious control. I only hinted at acquisition of language, and 'developmental feedback' milestones, of the deficits in these areas that challenge our concept of Will and Instinct, and render them creaky old reified artifacts at times. Tony, there is a wonderland of rational inquiry that makes Objectivists go into coma (with obvious exceptions like James H-N), sciences of strict standards of rationality and well-considered programmes of inquiry. The fruits of inquiry may be sweet and they may be sour to our human tastes, but they bear attending to in my opinion. If it is human to choose to learn, to think, what if there is no conversation, no 'co-locutor' either as caregiver or fellow inmate/sibling? If you do not stimulate a child or infant towards language, will there be a deficit? These are all questions that are being addressed, answers that are mostly or somewhat known. The answers tell a complex story of do-not-call-it 'instinct' and 'social stimulation.' And more. These may be trifles, inconsequential, of questionable relevance or Obvious, but I find they are unlikely to be wholly untrue as explanations. Thus O-ish folks along with Catholics go along with a half-assed adherence to evolution (if not the final sparking wonder of the human birth of Reason/Soul/Immortality/Blah). It is disturbing to my sense of free and robust inquiry that Objectivist claims are not simply treated as claims, checked. If iffy, set aside for further inquiry. A claim made about real world is indeed (at least in human imagination) falsifiable? This is where the Four Horsemen, the Gnu Atheists (and PZ Myers) crash against good manners and ignorance and conservatism. Claims are testable against reality. It is incumbent on justice to do such tests, and to repeat them. Is the fact of complex human governance emerging along with civilization a great mystery to Objectivists? Is it all the spark of ineffable genius of Homo Neandertalis Galt, or is it a million stones and crap in the walls and fences and roads and practices of history, a growing thing part of us and our genus's genius? Per Rand magic, humans invented rational (and not so rational) planning and governance (not Man. There is no Man. Not unless his Name is always Norm). I believe it is governance that is the genius that drove civilization and drives it still. To whom do you trust the safety of your cosmonauts or aerospace industry? Regulation, preventive measures, division of labour, bureacratic oversight and audit, directives and orders on advisement. We do not see a reduction in the misery of workplace death and wandering widows and the utter waste of human potential until the humans bounded together to establish the 'private' Work(mans)er Compensation schemes. Who led these efforts? Was it foul progressive beasts of Kant, or was it humans? Was it Man? So, goggles welded to my skull, my slavelike collectivism drilled into my head since birth in a public hospital, I am no innocent here. But I do say that governance and bureaucratic oversight and control, audits and 'best practice' and directives are here to stay as a spine of civilization, whatever its formats. Do it Stalin, do it Hitler, do it Pol Pot, do it Summer of Love and LA riots, do it Utopia, do it High Valley Kennel and orphanage. I do not think that how we devise means to govern ourselves is either fungus or a grace: it is our stumbling towards the future, it is behaviour, it is practice. It happens in private hands and public. It happens in my sleep at the electric plant. So, I do not mean to clobber you as a lovely man with a big heart, Tony, just remind myself in wonder that there seems to be a lot of meat in the sandwich often passed over. It is not all gas and chalk and taint and psychobabble, cousin, goggles on, goggles off.

Yeahbut. You said, "Typically, by altruism they [evolutionary biologists] mean 'benevolence.'" I was hoping for more. Tap tap. Cough. Tap. Checks watch. Whistles for taxi. We agree on so many things, and here again. When you talk like that you seem so nice and earnest that I just want to see you get married and spawn a giant O-ish family empire. If you came to Vancouver you could marry your partner in the morning -- on the beach, contemplate your fates on the mountaintop for lunch, and still have time to catch the 4:11 flight to Reno, quickie airport divorce, gambling buffet, beverages, showgoils, and an after-the-divorce Nevada Nights Night Out with Brant ... who will have driven up with Laure and James H-N. We will put on heavy make-up and/or Party Hats, and Blend Right In. Quiet, O-ish, reasoning rampages. With ice-cold beverages and plentiful snacks. A boombox ... a vision. But I suppose the Obama recession means we triumphant winners will be counting our twenties till the November Election Nite Whoop-up here at OL. For my smoking-booth live video broadcast, I have decided on some Nevada sparkle, and a Party Hat. I am hoping to live interview some drunken partisan. Now that Stocker Dimencha Paranoy is off the guest list, I will be able to show my real face (see Bill's Morning Make-up Tips #2). Thank you (and Robert) for being so nice and reasonable during my fits of snark.

Thanks, Robert, for engulfing me in definitional molasses. I am going to call in a friend to help me, Daniel Barnes. If your point is taken, the genesis, the point of operationalizing was to agree on a measurement. StudioD has already measured, and I am only asking to see his data points (at least an example/quote/reference) -- the definitions as supplied by actual evolutionary biologists. The claim was that EB uses altruism as 'benevolence.' I can't let that kind of fog stand around too long, is all. So I let off a flare. Thanks for watching the skies, brother.

The article shows the foresight that can come from not being a politician. Hudgins owes nothing to the Republican Party, neither loyalty nor acquiescence. I salute his independence and the punch of the telling observation above. Politicians need to get elected. Politicians need 'support.' Politicians will pander, dress up as clowns, swim to the bottom of the pond, lie, evade, swerve, obfuscate and do all manner of other neg/positive, ig/noble, non/Objectivish things. Ed is no politician in the sense of operative for Party interests (I think his circles of trust are well-staked and defended). I respect those like Ed under the Big O, those who respect Ayn Rand and yet who respect foremost the evidence of their senses (allied with best reason). I frankly loathe Ed's 'politics' in the sense of partisan left/right boilerplate, but hey, I am a Socialist and captive of Canada ... my obvious bias and sensitivity should not render me blind and deaf and unappreciative of his humanity and his perceptions. As I applaud Diana for occasional forays into nondenominational reasoning, I applaud clear sight. My senses, even once adjusted for the distortion of my bias goggles and inbuilt temperament lenses, even after discounting the insidious effects of my Socialism and my Canadianism -- my senses tell me that this year's crop of Republican candidates and policies shows just how willing they are to do anything, say anything, to be elected, and to fuck around with settled freedoms. The 'gay thing,' like the 'woman thing' is generational and enduring. The newest generation is not interested in restricting reproductive health services (even Catholics, even Latinos, even gasp Republicans) or same-sex partnerships. The only holdouts are the Tea Partiers, who prefer to live in the glory of the 18th century, when men were men, women were women, and gawd revealed the Constitution to America. I would have thought that the pandering sluts and creepy nose-in-other-peoples'-crotches legislators of the GOP would attract scorn and critical scrutiny here at a site for Independent Objectivish things. I thought that the Transvaginal Express (coming to 26 states with Republican administrat9ons near you!) would attract the kind of eviscerating scorn Ayn Rand was good at -- a no holds barred takedown of Mr Magic Pants Plutocrat Slut for Wall Street and the other two-faced sluts, gigolos, lap-dancers and hypocrites (yes, Hi, Governor of Virginia!). But no. Off to the altar goes Mitt and Newt and Rick and Michael and Adam and otherwise wise and discerning people. Perhaps Ed will next be labelled 'biased' or otherwise dismissed as a tool or slave of Them/The Media/Not-Glenn Bad haters. Me, I think we bear responsibility for who we get into bed with. As when Diana slunk into bed with the Emperor of SOLO, sometimes politics makes strange bedfellows. Thanks, Ed. You got class and integrity enough to mention the big fat lumbering sleazebag Christian nut-fed elephant in the room ... while not insulting delicate socialists like myself.

An aphoristic thought. I would add that though there are no 'instincts' for survival, no 'hard-wired' command as told to us by the Holy Books and the Seer, it is possible to argue that a baby without Suck or Cry, an infant without Scream (and big eyes that make him or her look like an adorable precious little lovable puppy), a mother without Oxytocin, a toddler without Learn Learn Ask Hound Why Why Why No No I Won't, a teen without shame or fear or clannish feelings, a young adult without speech or community ... without all these non-instinctive things that may or may not be chosen consciously, without emotion, without Big Cute Eyes and Sex Appeal and Rutting Desires and Nesting Hormones (as with the mountain vole), humans would be well and truly fucked. As it is, we overran the world and killed that pesky passenger pigeon. I think we can be trusted to expand right to the cliff edge and well beyond, whatever the bycatch or losses to socialism. And I say this as a guy who clings to rationality like Molly to the life-raft.

Just to have the top five New comments here, I must add I LOVE BARBARA BRANDEN when she talks like this. She puts "Reasonable" back into "Reason." Thank you.

I will give it some thought. At the moment, my trust circles radiate outward in levels of strength and automaticity: Me, My Immediate Family of upraising (meaning my co-reared cousins and my co-reared half-siblings), My Immediate Family's Spouses (no kids), my cul-de-sac (except for 1728, whom I have known for almost forty years, my Drive (Lilac), my estate (Alderwood, though not the 'renters'), my community hockey team (a lie), my community (bullshit), my region (ha!), my hockey team (double Ha!), my doctor, my optometrist, Raj/Gary, Parm, Sukvinder, Mr Pokay-Bombo, The Peach Arch News letters section. Beyond these circles there is treachery and deceit and conspiracy. One must be vigilant, given our history. Or something. Totally unfair and uncalled for. Totally. A reading, writing, communicative chimpanzee must not be mocked, especially by a gun-toting socialist monstress like you. Next thing we know you will be blathering on about Peace, Order and Good Government and experiencing Total Fusebox Burn when contrasting this to Stephen Harper. Tony says some family wit suggests: "Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler." Which is a pithy take on William of Ockham's pithy take on Endless Plots Most Beautiful. Normal Human Psychology, happily or not, is not the Norm. Not even normative. Some otherwise well-normed individuals are subject to what we call in the trade "WILD VARIATIONS." Upon these sports of nature and delusion are the next generation of replicators. See 9/11 'Truth' and the aforementioned Endless Plots Most Beautiful. Actually yes as it already happens daily. [ ... ] Good thing it wasn’t one but if it was it’s great to know that a competent private sector for-profit company was involved to handle the issue. Very good points supporting and yet not supporting Tony's points about Always Better Private. The line between governance and government is one that appears to me to be increasingly hazy. But in this instance, as in so many others where 'private' regulation precedes and sometimes outscores 'public regulation,' no differential calculation or comparison can be made, as an absence of public regulation is rare to vanishing on this earth. That said, it aids our wisdom to contemplate things like the tainted milk scandal in China, in depth, to list and learn the lessons of Dan's example. And by learning, I mean New Learning, not re-reading Lexicon entries and climbing the Cherry Tree for confirmation fruit alone. The lack of a regulatory structure in Chinese public bodies, the corruption in the private sector, the evasion, collusion and actual conspiracy to defraud -- these list items are on the table for comparison to the Wonderland where all cherries are sweet, all humans are named Norm, and all dissent and criminality will wither away like the State under communism. Consider in passing that odd phrase comparning chalk and cheese, and consider its relation to the great Milk and Bread purity debates that long-preceded any FDA or CFIA or WHO, etc, long before circles of trust and guarantees and corporate extensions of good governance of the food supply. What is in that 'milk' sold from a bucket in Whitechapel, or the 'white bread' sold in The City? Consider another incident in the history of so-called Public Health, public inspection of fountains and wells in The City, in the time of cholera. Indeed, consider cholera and the aftermath of any disaster. Consider, oh, one more: Walkerton. It's not actually found in the bible, but in other, lesser sacralized publications. Easy for a talking chimp to say! Maybe the food has rat poison in it, maybe not. Maybe it has Talking Chimp/Missing Link poison. Spin the bottle and step up to the plate, Oh-Primate-Who-Dances-With-Labels ...

The Mythos I noted is one that should not have any significance for Americans, actually, thus my notes above. It is to Adam's credit that he both understands and appreciates the reality and notionality of one of our most important national myths. Can anyone but an American patriot understand the Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington National Cemetary? Can anyone but an American born or bred feel the emotions of the Vietnam Memorial in Washington? Can a Canadian hope to understand the intense feelings that might attend a hilarious story on US national monuments to service dead? ****************************** This is the most moving image of all that I have found of the Vimy memorial. It might just suggest to a non-Canadian what we commemorate, if not explaining anything of our Mythos, or providing bared breasts for added hilarity. A painting by Longstaff, Ghosts of Vimy Ridge, from the collection of Parliament. It depicts the ghosts of the Canadian Corps. I think I shall come back to this thread on November 11th. As a sobering tonic after the fun of OL's intercontinental Election Party!

I am sorry, Adam -- I do not understand the question. Which 'proposal submissions' and which 'naked look'? Ah ... I think it hilarious too, but perhaps it does not strike the same funny bone for both of us. -- what I found funny-ha-ha and funny-peculiar was the 'focus group' excerpts ... I suspect that the findings of the focus groups were a lovely cherry tree of opinion, some this, some that, some the other. The UPI report, and the odd-spot CTV report relied on the age-old fallacy of composition. That is (at the Daily Mail) their job: to sell papers and tell a good story. If not a true story, if a garbled hash of ignorance and cynicism, oh well. If some dumbfuck Canucki is quoted ("one woman said" ... "another person stated") being at sea in relation to nudity, WTC, Vimy, etcetera ... can we build a story on this? Yes, yes indeed, and isn't that funny!